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Plizzken are back in a big way with their eagerly anticipated second LP, Do You Really Wanna Know? These German punks' debut LP was the first full length where lead singer Sebi sang entirely in English. Since that album's release to great acclaim from the international street punk commu- nity, Sebi suffered the setback of a debilitating workplace accident, but triumphantly rose above all expecta- tions for recovery, making a hard-hit- ting new record with his long-running band Stomper 98 to boot! Returning their focus to Plizzken, Sebi and the crew are locked in and razor tight, crafting 13 brand new tracks of anthemic working class street punk that will thrill their fans while taking them by surprise. What will strike listeners immediately is a renewed focus on melody and hooks. In short, these songs are CATCHY! By the time the handclaps come in on the fourth song, "Memory Lane," you may just find yourself dancing around the room to these tunes. Likewise for the post-punk/new wave influenced groove that drives tracks like "I Don't Wanna. "Without sacrificing the realism and grit with which they face the world and sound the alarms for the working class to rise up, Plizzken sound renewed, positive, and keen to encourage everyone ready "TO FIGHT THE GOOD FIGHT," as the gang vocals on "Mad World" put it. Although they are all punk rock veterans with decades playing music, Do You Really Wanna Know? has the energy of a hungry young band who are not about to waste a new lease on life. Combining street level punk rock 'n roll with a genuine pop sensibility and a rabble-rousing spirit, executed with the chops of seasoned players, Do You Really Wanna Know? is truly a record that will have old fans dancing and singing along with fists in the air, hand in hand with what is certain to be an army of new ones.

A resiny slab in the grand tradition of weed-fiend odysseys from Sleep, Weedeater and Bongzilla, ready to inebriate the riff-obsessed masses. Red-eyed at the crossroads of thunderous stoner sludge and towering doom, Hashtronaut are ready to daze and inebriate the riff-obsessed masses on this planet and beyond. No Return is a resiny slab In the grand tradition of weed-fiend odysseys from Sleep, Weedeater and Bongzilla, an intoxicating and pummeling journey through time and space infused with a lungful of potent hook-doom. Pummeling and intoxcating stoner metal for fans of Sleep, Bongzilla, Electric Wizard and Monolord LP pressed on sleek transparent yellow vinyl!

Reissue of the 1995 compilation of long deleted demos and early recordings from the cult band of the 'first wave' of Black Metal ABRUPTUM.

In 2014, Wye Oak released Shriek, their fourth album. It was a necessary departure for Jenn Wasner and Andy Stack, who found themselves on uncertain ground after two years of constant touring for 2011's Civilian, living on opposite ends of the country and trying to revitalize their creative partnership. Wasner set aside her guitar for a bass. Stack took on the band's upper register, playing syncopated, meditative keyboard parts that interacted with Wasner's voice, which was newly freed from its call-and-response relationship to the guitar_what had been, until then, a signature of Wye Oak's sound. "This idea and the ensuing creative reworking of our band did what it was meant to do," Wasner writes in 2024. "It ended a long, painful period of creative stagnancy and reconnected me with the joy of making music." During that period, Wasner and Stack were introduced to William Brittelle, the Brooklyn-based composer whose 2019 LP Spiritual America featured Wye Oak, the Metropolis Ensemble, and the Brooklyn Youth Chorus. His orchestral reimaginings of five songs from Shriek (Shriek: Variations, if you will) are the centerpiece of this package, which serves not only to mark the tenth anniversary of a great album, but to demonstrate the richness of Wye Oak's compositions. Stack says of Shriek: Variations: "It's like looking at the songs in a funhouse mirror. The songs on Shriek can be stripped down or embellished_this is maximal embellishment. William took the album and blew it to smithereens, looking at it in a weird, prismatic way." Through Brittelle, Wasner and Stack found themselves at the intersection of classical, experimental, and pop music. Further collaborations, like the Brooklyn Youth Chorus- featuring No Horizon and Paul and Michi Wiancko's string arrangements on "My Signal" from The Louder I Call, The Faster It Runs, followed, as this connection fundamentally changed the way Wye Oak approached making records, incorporating an entirely new palette of sound into their work. That shift began here. Shriek: Variations may feel like a startling take on the material, something like light bursting into a room through drawn curtains, but Brittelle's arrangements are largely original to his first collaborations with Wye Oak a decade ago, suggesting that his maximalist arrangements have lived comfortably within the framework of Shriek the whole time, waiting for the right moment to emerge. It's a fitting reintroduction to the album, which upon its initial release was pigeonholed into the easy one-note talking point of being the "no-guitar" record. But even so, as that happened, Shriek quietly started to become a staple among Wye Oak's core fans. Here, with help from Brittelle's expansive compositions, the release draws attention back to the songwriting_how, regardless of the instrumentation, Wasner and Stack's uncanny musicwriting partnership at the core is what makes both Shriek and Wye Oak excellent. Joined by the Metropolis Ensemble, Paul Wiancko, and Lizzie Burns, Wye Oak turn songs like "Logic of Color" inside out, reaching towards a kind of pastoral bombast, Brittelle's aesthetic with Wasner and Stack as an anchor. In fact, "Logic of Color" in this iteration takes that "no-guitar" script and flips it, with Wasner playing the synthesizer ostinato on acoustic guitar at its center. If Shriek is a record that charts the depths of solemnity and inner space, its Variations, roiling in a sea of winds, brass, and strings, recolors that space and complicates it, a gorgeous, unexpected response to the original's siren call.

"As Bill Orcutt’s most mature and exhilarating LP to date, Music for Four Guitars was a slab of undeniable Apollonian beauty. Its approachability and obvious novelty landed it not only on the year- end lists of every key-pushing codger in the underground in 2022, but also on NPR in the form of the Bill Orcutt Guitar Quartet, an ensemble assembled to perform this music and featuring Wendy Eisenberg, Ava Mendoza, and Shane Parish in addition to Orcutt. But while their Tiny Desk Concert gave a whiff of the quartet’s easy intimacy, the sterile confines of the virtual recital medium still left a puzzle unsolved: how might these brutally mannered bricks of minimalist counterpoint sound on a stage in front of actual breathing bodies?" "This was the question foremost in my mind when I first saw the quartet in San Francisco a few months before this double live LP was recorded. I was already familiar with the prowess of Eisenberg and Mendoza, two of the most technically intimidating shredders to blast out of the noise/improv underground, and knew Parish as the mastermind behind the epic translation of Orcutt's quartet recordings into a fully notated score. I was ready to be 'blown away'—and I most assuredly was. The quartet navigated Orcutt's jaggedly spiraling right angles into the shining core of the compositions with joyous ease, faithful to the originals in nearly every way (though their tempos were slightly ramped up, Blakey style, to communicate their breathless rush). The renditions were flawless, stellar and inspiring. I had expected nothing less." "Which leads us to this album, Four Guitars Live, recorded in November of 2023 at Le Guess Who? festival during the quartet’s first European tour. The true essence of this set is not simply in its faithfulness to the source compositions, but in the group's easy familiarity (no doubt the result of weeks on the road) and the generosity of their improvisations, both collective and solo. Orcutt, clearly cognizant of both the caliber of his collaborators and the singularity of their voices, has given everyone room to stretch out, and all have delivered some of their most moving passages to date." "One of this record's great thrills for me is imagining a listener, perhaps unfamiliar with the outer limits of contemporary guitar improvisation (or the Tzadik catalog), slammed into catatonia by Mendoza's liquefying lines on Out of the corner of the eye, then revived and healed by the languid, breathy lines of Parish's unaccompanied, spaced-out breakdown of the track's main theme, finally only to be crushed by Eisenberg’s staggering extended solo on Only at dusk (somehow channeling both Eugene Chadbourne and Buck Dharma)." "There's another peak, which begins at the end of side B, in Orcutt's own languid solo, encapsulating the flowing focus of his recent solo LPs, and serving as an introduction to the next side's ensemble tour de force, the psychic heart of the album, On the horizon: its melodic core passing first to Orcutt, launching into a sublime solo turn by Eisenberg, a duo of Parish and Mendoza, before parachuting back into the ensemble for a smashup rendition of Barely visible and Glimpsed while driving (renamed Barely driving) knitted together with an softly bubbling ensemble improvisation. The transfer is orchestrated yet seamless, its tonal form undeniable even in the presence of obvious dissonance." "The breadth of Four Guitars Live gives lie to the false notion that agile, polytonal improv is necessarily without soul, is necessarily inaccessible. Rather, Four Guitars posits a human avant-garde music that the most conservative will recognize as virtuosic and revel in its classic intervals, boiling counterpoint, and precisely- layered facets. Even the rockers in your life might dig it, so why not pass it on?"—Tom Carter

Funkrockfolk mit animierenden Grooves aus Berlin Bis zur Pandemie konnte sich Holler my Dear über jede Menge Resonanz und internationale Bühnenerfolge freuen. Die drei Alben des weit gereisten Berliner Sextetts erhielten auch außerhalb Deutschlands viel Lob. Bei Festivals (u.a. X-Jazz, Reeperbahn, Jazz Open Stuttgart, Jazz & the City Salzburg, Mexico City, Penang, Kairo, Teheran) und in Clubs feierte die Band rauschende Feste. Im Juni 2023 veröffentlichte Holler my Dear die EP Aftermath, deren Songs u.a. mit der (Post)-Coronastimmung abrechnen und die eine elektronischere Soundästhetik ausloten. Nun schlägt Holler my Dear das nächste Kapitel auf. Die Songsammlung An Only Me Is A Lonely You präsentiert einerseits eine Rückbesinnung auf die akustische Grandezza von jazziger Trompete und Akkordeon, neben Winklers extrem variablem Gesang von jeher Markenzeichen der Band. Andererseits wagt das Sextett neuerdings gewitzte Flirts mit rauem Funk, Soul und Rock im Stil der frühen Siebziger oder auch im Geist des unvergessenen Prince. Verglichen mit dem Vorgänger wirkt die neue Produktion etwas heller, teils geradezu uplifting. Dafür sorgen stärkere Grooves von Schlagzeug und E-Bass, prägnante Riffs und eruptive Instrumental-Einsätze sowie mehr Humor in musikalischen und textlichen Details. So unmittelbar wie nie wird die immer wieder hochgelobte Dynamik und Bühnenenergie von Holler my Dear auf Tonträger eingefangen. Die absichtsvoll "schmutzige" Ästhetik sei einerseits aus der Stilistik der Songs erwachsen, sagt Laura Winkler. Andererseits hat Produzent Dennis Rux (Angels Of Libra, Hamburg Spinners, Tetrao Urogallus) einen starken Anteil daran. Der Hamburger ist ausgewiesener Spezialist für hochkarätiges Vintage-Studioequipment, von Mikrophonen über Vorverstärker bis zu Band-Echos und anderen Effektgeräten, die er schon seit Dekaden sammelt. Während der Aufnahmen befand sich die Band größtenteils im selben Raum, was den bekannten Live-Esprit entfachte. Auf nachträgliche Korrekturen oder gar Overdubs wurde weitgehend verzichtet, das verstärkt den direkten Eindruck. Dazu passend erscheint Winklers gravitätische Stimme wendiger denn je. Neben eingängigen und fast hymnischen Melodien setzt sie verstärkt auf rhythmische Phrasierungen bis hin zu Rap-ähnlichen Passagen mit perkussivem Charakter.

Limitiert auf 200 Exemplare. 180g, schwarzes Vinyl. Gut ein halbes Jahr nach digitalem Release erscheint softboy ivo's zweites Album "Reboot" in streng limitierter Vinyl-Auflage. "Reboot" vereint von Artwork bis Klang zeitgenössisch dystopischen Sound zwischen Trap, 2-Step und Deutschpop/Indie. Ein melancholisch kühles Album mit besonderer Atmosphäre.

Nachpressung in tief rotem Vinyl! Ein zentrales Album für die heutige Zeit: hell, frei, unnachgiebig, optimistisch. Brain Worms ist das bisher vollste und makelloseste Album von RVG. Auf "Brain Worms" wird deutlich, dass die Band in bester Form ist. Der Album-Opener 'Common Ground' gibt den Ton an für das, was kommen wird; ein glänzendes, mitreißendes, schlagkräftiges Album mit allen geliebten RVG-Merkmalen. Vagers Stimme ist ungefiltert und souverän wie immer, wenn sie ihre cleveren, nicht ganz ironischen Texte vorträgt. Hier fühlen sich diese Texte jedoch viel weniger resigniert und sehnsüchtig an, sondern viel mehr trotzig und fröhlich. Tambourine" ist der einzige Covid-Song, den Vager schrieb, als sie "versuchte, keine Covid-Songs zu schreiben", und es ist ein schmerzhaft ehrliches Porträt der Trauer inmitten der Isolation. Brain Worms" erzählt die nur allzu bekannte Geschichte eines Menschen, der in den Kaninchenbau des Internets fällt und Trost in Verschwörungen findet. Nothing Really Changes" ist ein Keyboarder-lastiges New-Wave-Ding, während das abschließende "Tropic of Cancer" mit Vagers selbstbewusstem neuen Manifest glänzt: Ich weiß, wie ich bin, und ich weiß, wie ich werde. Wenn du denkst, ich bin seltsam, hast du noch nichts gesehen. Bloxham, Nolte und Wallace erwecken Vagers Songwriting mit Bravour zum Leben. Aufgenommen in den Londoner Snap Studios mit James Trevascus (Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, PJ Harvey), strotzen alle zehn Tracks vor üppigen Klängen, klaren Absichten und der Magie einer Akustikgitarre, die einst Kate Bush gehörte und die ihr von Tears for Fears geschenkt wurde (die, so die Legende, "Everybody Wants to Rule the World" darauf geschrieben hat). Die vier Bandmitglieder - Leadsänger und Gitarrist Vager, Gitarrist Reuben Bloxham, Schlagzeuger Marc Nolte und Bassist Isabele Wallace - sind so selbstbewusst wie noch nie bei RVG. Sie haben ihre Einflüsse hinter sich gelassen, sich selbst vorangetrieben und neue Dinge ausprobiert. Und sie haben ein Album gemacht, das sie nach allem, was sie sagen, als ihr bestes bezeichnen können. Brain Worms" fühlt sich an wie die Antithese zu dem, was eine Post-Pandemic-Platte leicht sein könnte. Für eine Band, die bereits Musik über das Zurückgezogensein schrieb, "wir waren deprimiert und gingen auf unseren ersten beiden Alben nicht nach draußen", gab die erzwungene Isolation und die Zeit zum Nachdenken Vager Raum, über alles zu schreiben, was sie wollte. Und es stellte sich heraus, dass sie bereit war, über Akzeptanz zu schreiben. "Wenn wir nur ein weiteres Album machen könnten, wäre es dieses", sagt Vager. Rolling Stone: "Eine Visitenkarte für Außenseiter... dynamischer und vitaler Post-Punk" The Guardian: "Eine der vitalsten Bands der australischen Szene von heute.

Emerging out of Amsterdam's vibrant squat scene in 1979, The Ex – a name chosen for the ease and speed with which it could be spray-painted onto a wall – have for four decades been an entirely self-sustaining musical entity, charting a course through the global underground with a spirit of freedom and radical exploration.

On 1985's Pokkeherrie (Dutch for "terrible noise"), The Ex return to the more stripped-down instrumentation on their early LPs. A key lineup change would also see the arrival of drummer Kat Bornefeld (whose supple rhythms propel the group to this day).

Recorded at the new location of Koeienverhuur Studio in the basement of storied squat/venue Emma, Pokkeherrie is a testament to the angular momentum of a group in full creative flux. Right from the opening track, bassist Luc Klaasen generates a relentless pulse. Terrie Ex's sparse/acidic guitar and G.W. Sok's impassioned vocals combine in a vein similar to The Minutemen, Flipper or Rudimentary Peni, except The Ex have the patience and wherewithal to sustain their approach beyond just brief explosions.

Perhaps only The Fall from this period can match The Ex's ability to hold a melody together while utilizing otherwise harsh sonic elements over an extended piece, most effectively on "Soviet Threat," "1,000,000 Ashtrays" and "White Liberals."

Diese Split-LP wird auf dem Vinyl-Drehtisch einen bleibenden Eindruck hinterlassen: "LEAVE A TRACE" bietet zwei der aktuell besten europäischen Streetpunk, Oi! & Hardcore-Acts mit jeweils fünf neuen und exklusiven Songs. "This Means War" melden sich 5 Jahre nach ihrer letzten Scheibe "Heartstrings" (Pirate Press) zurück! Mit veränderter Besetzung (neu dazugestossen Tom (Ex Dead-Bleed) sowie Steve von Chron-Gen, neuem Label, neuen Songs, Ihren Style nennt die Band nach wie vor "Bleeding Punk" und mit Killersongs wie "We owe the night" oder "Raging Souls" kann man nur sagen: Was für eine gelungene Überraschung! Die Italienischen "No Restraints" dagegen machen wie üblich keine Gefangenen und bieten den optimalen Härtegrad mit ihrem Mix aus brachialen Sing-a-long Shoutern, Oi!-Core und einer perfekten Dosierung melody & "Direct Hit-Punches"....schon der Opener "Rough & tough" bedarf keiner weiteren Kommentierung. Ihren Stil-Mix und Songwriting haben sie dabei ein weiteres Mal mit feinen Nuancen perfektioniert, ihre lyrics hinterlassen deutliche Spuren im brüchigen Mauerwerk dieser verlogenen Gesellschaft. Oder um den Refrain von "Forever in disguise" zu zitieren": No chance to close your eyes....

Diese Split-LP wird auf dem Vinyl-Drehtisch einen bleibenden Eindruck hinterlassen: "LEAVE A TRACE" bietet zwei der aktuell besten europäischen Streetpunk, Oi! & Hardcore-Acts mit jeweils fünf neuen und exklusiven Songs. "This Means War" melden sich 5 Jahre nach ihrer letzten Scheibe "Heartstrings" (Pirate Press) zurück! Mit veränderter Besetzung (neu dazugestossen Tom (Ex Dead-Bleed) sowie Steve von Chron-Gen, neuem Label, neuen Songs, Ihren Style nennt die Band nach wie vor "Bleeding Punk" und mit Killersongs wie "We owe the night" oder "Raging Souls" kann man nur sagen: Was für eine gelungene Überraschung! Die Italienischen "No Restraints" dagegen machen wie üblich keine Gefangenen und bieten den optimalen Härtegrad mit ihrem Mix aus brachialen Sing-a-long Shoutern, Oi!-Core und einer perfekten Dosierung melody & "Direct Hit-Punches"....schon der Opener "Rough & tough" bedarf keiner weiteren Kommentierung. Ihren Stil-Mix und Songwriting haben sie dabei ein weiteres Mal mit feinen Nuancen perfektioniert, ihre lyrics hinterlassen deutliche Spuren im brüchigen Mauerwerk dieser verlogenen Gesellschaft. Oder um den Refrain von "Forever in disguise" zu zitieren": No chance to close your eyes.... Orangenes Vinyl!

REISSUE

28 Jahre sind OXO 86 jetzt auch schon dabei, 2022 sogar das erste Mal in den Charts, und präsentieren immer noch ihren Skapunk allerbestgelaunt. Das lange vergriffene "Akustikalbum" gibt's jetzt endlich wieder auf limitiertem Vinyl. Ursprünglich 2016 zum 20-jähigen Bandjubiläum erschienen, erfüllte sich die Bernauer Ausnahmeband einen langgehegten Wunsch und nahm 13 ihrer beliebtesten Hits akustisch neu auf. OXO86 schafft es dabei mühelos, dass die Lieder im punkigen Folk-Offbeat-Gewand einen ganz besonderen Esprit und Charme versprühen. Der Rest ist Geschichte mit stets ausverkauften Club-Tourneen und Headliner-Positionen auf allen großen Festivals. So auch 2024 beim Ruhrpott Rodeo, Spirit from the Streets, Back to Future uvw. Farbiges Frühlings-Vinyl mit Mamor-Effekt, jede Platte anders.

Everybody's still talking about the good ol' days! A rough and rugged collection of Numero Group classics that have inspired swarms of killer beats. A head nod to the sounds of Shaolin, the thirteen chambers of Shanghai'd Soul have led a generation of lyrical chefs and production geniuses to compose some of their most ominous hip-hop. Bound by heavy drums, moody chords, and haunting melodies, Gods and Earths alike will appreciate the raw funk and smoother-than-a-Lexus soul that come together like Voltron on this special compilation.

Everybody's still talking about the good ol' days! A rough and rugged collection of Numero Group classics that have inspired swarms of killer beats. A head nod to the sounds of Shaolin, the thirteen chambers of Shanghai'd Soul have led a generation of lyrical chefs and production geniuses to compose some of their most ominous hip-hop. Bound by heavy drums, moody chords, and haunting melodies, Gods and Earths alike will appreciate the raw funk and smoother-than-a-Lexus soul that come together like Voltron on this special compilation.

This is The Wreckery album that never was but always should have been!

At the crest of the Australian post punk era, The Wreckery played atmospheric rock with film-noir swagger and renegade attitude, carving a loyal following. Critics quickly positioned them as successors to a darkly exciting avant-garde Melbourne tradition previously marked out by The Birthday Party.

Early recordings for Rampant Records (1985-87) showcased The Wreckery's fusion of swamp blues and noir-jazz, delivered with a deadpan, reckless, and romantic cut (check out the 'Ruling Energy' video!). Creative tensions saw the band implode as they were reaching their peak with the Laying Down Law album (Citadel Records, 1988). Yet another great and dangerous rock 'n' roll band who became a danger to themselves.

35 years later, the new album Fake is Forever delivers on unfulfilled promises, revealing The Wreckery on fire like never before. The DNA is still there – the signature sound of Charles Todd's baritone sax; the scathing lyrics and vocals of Hugo Race; the distorted angular guitars of Clayton-Jones; the eclecticism of multi-instrumentalist Robin Casinader; Nick Barker and former Plays With Marionettes drummer Frank Trobbiani fuse as the solid engine room of this iconic group. All the original edge with a new maturity and control.

The songs still emanate from the deep, dark end of the musical gene pool. The sarcastic, provocative lyrics of 'Smack Me Down', 'Get A Name' and 'Young People'; the musical fury of 'Stole it from Alpha Ray' and 'Evil Eye', the romantic melodrama of 'The Devil in You' and 'Whistle Clean', the deranged rock of 'Dragonfly' and 'Garbage Juice' – The Wreckery's range is as vast as it is ferocious. Whereas the band in the 80's were brash and angry this record finds the band conjuring quiet menace, sensual, intoxicating.

Hugo Race – vocals, guitars, keys

Ed Clayton-Jones - guitar, piano, synth, Mellotron, slide guitar , Solina string synth

Nick Barker – bass guitar and backing vocals

Charles Todd - the saxophones

Robin Casinader - Hammond organ, mellotron, mandolin and violin
Frank Trobbiani - the drums and percussion

Recorded by Andrew 'Idge' Hehir at Soundpark Studios, Melbourne
Mixed by Hugo Race at Helixed
Mastered by Toto Strapporava at 3Faders Studio, Buenos Aires
Published by Peermusic

One of the rarest, and greatest, horn instrumental dub albums of the seventies featuring the soaring saxophone of Tommy McCook in combination with Glen Brown, 'The Rhythm Master', is finally given a legitimate release.

The original title for this long playing release was initially advertised on the label of the seven inch release of 'Determination Skank' as 'The Sannic Sounds Tommy McCook', however the album was released in Kingston in 1974 in very limited quantities on a white label in a plain recycled cover rubber-stamped 'Tommy McCook Dub'. Three years later the set was released through Grounation in London, once again on a white label and without a cover, where it was known as 'Horny Dub'. It gave music lovers a fascinating opportunity to compare and contrast the work of Tommy McCook, one of the architects and builders of the Jamaican sound, with Glen Brown's role in taking and breaking it into pieces...,

Dub Store Records is the Ska, Rocksteady, Reggae, Roots and Dancehall reissue label run by the eponymous Tokyo based record store. The label aims at accurately covering the 50-plus years of Jamaican music, and pass on many rare and magnificent recordings, which are non-commercial and highly artistic. Carefully handing down the tradition of reggae music, Dub Store Records has so far issued recordings from labels and artists such as Studio One, Federal Records (Federal, Kentone, Merritone), Bunny Wailer's Solomonic, Familyman's Fam's, Jammys, King Tubby's Firehouse, Derrick Harriott, Kiddus I, Redman International, BMN and much more to come.

Enid Valu normally relies on lenses and light to express herself. Known to create stunning visuals, to capture sonic worlds with her preferred instrument (the camera), the US-born, Munich-based photographer and video artist has been working with various bands, shooting concerts, creating music videos, visualizing what she hears. However, now that she’s become an indispensable part of the local scene, she for once ditches the cam and steps up to the mic instead – appearing as featured vocalist on two of the four brand-new covers Hochzeitskapelle recorded for the forthcoming EP entitled “We Dance.”

“It’s later than you think,” she reminds us, just like Stephen Malkmus once did in Pavement’s “We Dance” – beautifully rearranged and reworked some three decades later. Also musing about “Stockholm Syndrome,” just like Yo La Tengo’s bass player James McNews did back then, this new Hochzeitskapelle interpretation is obviously less reminiscent of Neil Young, if compared to the original take. Instead, their Yo La Tengo cover feels almost like a song recorded by The Notwist – which, interestingly enough, is not because two of The Notwist’s core members also play in Hochzeitskapelle. Nope, it’s the vibe of Enid Valu’s guest vocals that somehow points in that direction.

As for the two remaining cover choices, it’s all-instrumental business as usual. For Low’s classic “Silver Rider,” it’s the banjo that does Alan Sparhawk’s vocal part, whereas the trombone soon joins in, contributing Mimi Parker’s second vocal layer as the tune unfolds. Eventually adding a German song to the mix – Wir Sind Helden’s “Elefant” –, it’s an EP that comprises four beautiful half-forgotten indie classics that Hochzeitskapelle reworks, adding the group’s unique, charmingly handmade/oddball “Rumpeljazz” trademark. One can immediately tell how much they love the original tracks: these are recordings, done by fans and admirers who aren’t even trying to sound much like the musicians who wrote them. However, the new versions are so compelling in their own right, they make you want to revisit the original tracks as well… (Dirk Wagner)

Mood II Swing are giants of NY metro area club culture. On calibre with heavy-hitters like Masters At Work and Blaze, Lem Springsteen and John Ciafone's output boasts the bejeweled crown of deep house supremacy, spanning from the early 1990's to the latter part of the decade, molding and modeling a sound painstakingly tailored to the vanguard of minority and transgendered club scenes, pre-purge New York. One of their first and most explosive claims to the throne was 1992's "Wall of Sound" EP, a no-prisoners-taken masterpiece with the confidence and cockiness of two producers just out the gate and fully assured of their total domination of the craft. "I Need Your Luv" is, to this day, the indisputable measuring stick of cunty club tracks, opening as the curtain lifts with the outpouring of one fierce ruling diva, quickly picking up force in a storm of wide swinging-drum programs, punching bass drives and sparse, splitting synth stabs, all punctuated with unyielding vocal cut-ups and yearning cries. On the flip, "Penetration" delivers the same expert method, albeit with a more abstract, dreamy air about it, a bumping, endlessly ascending standard of the vocal-sample driven deep house track of the early 1990's, constantly building and morphing in its deceptive complexity. Brilliant, timeless and time-defying, "I Need Your Luv" & "Penetration" have finally been reissued for the first time since their original debut 21 years ago, the latest feature in Slow to Speak's ongoing CORE series, a testament to the formative years of NY house lore.

Mella Dee for Private Parts' third outing.

"Bright Future" ist das zweite Solo-Album von Adrianne Lenker, bekannt als Sängerin und Songwriterin der amerikanischen Indie-Band BIG THIEF, auf 4AD. Ihr erstes eigenes Album seit "Songs & Instrumentals" aus dem Jahr 2020 wurde von Philip Weinrobe co-produziert und enstand unter der Mitwirkung von Nick Hakim, Mat Davidson und Josefin Runsteen. Adrianne wagte sie sich ins Unbekannte, fasste sich ein Herz und schrieb ihre bis dato berührendsten Solo-Songs, die sie im Herbst 2022 mit einigen ihrer Lieblingsmenschen aufnehmen konnte. Abseits der Zivilisation und urbanen Einflüssen wagten sich Hakim, Davidson, Runsteen und Lenker ins Ungewisse. Der Co-Produzent und Tontechniker von "Bright Future", Philip Weinrobe, bereitete das Studio vor. Er war schon bei früheren Soloalben Adriannes Partner, aber dieses Mal war es etwas Neues. Adrianne hatte nicht die Absicht, ein Album zu machen. Stattdessen wollten sie die Songs ohne Erwartungen erforschen. Die Geborgenheit und Leichtigkeit des Waldes um das Double Infinity Studio ist ein prägendes Element der Aufnahmen. Das Ergebnis ist, dass "Bright Future" die besten Eigenschaften von filigranen Sounds mit der Spontanität von Field-Recordings vereint. Es gibt Details, die man erst beim zweiten oder dritten Hören entdecken wird und das macht die neuen Songs zu einem ungefilterten Erlebnis und beweist einmal mehr, dass Adrianne Lenker zu den größten Songwriterinnen ihrer Generation gehört. Das Album enthält zudem auch die Originalaufnahme des inzwischen zum modernen Klassiker gereiften Big Thief-Songs "Vampire Empire", der zuletzt sogar in der Playliste von Barack Obama auftauchte - unbewusst gibt der Albumtitel "Bright Future" einen Fingerzeig, wohin sich Adriannes Lenker Karriere als Musikerin entwickeln wird.